The New Zealand government said on Tuesday that it will collaborate with American finance behemoth BlackRock to become one of the first countries in the world to have a fully renewable energy-powered electricity infrastructure.
The government said that it was assisting BlackRock in the development of a $1.2 billion fund to increase investments in green hydrogen, battery storage, and wind and solar energy production. Government-owned businesses are anticipated to contribute some of the investment.
Since New Zealand dammed rivers decades ago to generate hydroelectric power, its electricity grid already uses roughly 82% renewable energy. By the end of this decade, the administration declared, it wants to generate all of its energy from renewable sources.
The declaration comes two months before an election, and the administration wants to highlight its commitment to environmental sustainability. The overall glasshouse gas emissions of the country have barely changed since the government symbolically proclaimed a climate emergency in 2020, according to critics.
In Auckland, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins told reporters, “This is a game changer for the clean-tech sector and an example of the pragmatic and practical steps the government is taking to accelerate climate action while actually growing our economy and creating jobs.”
According to Hipkins, the fund would enable New Zealand-based businesses to create intellectual property that could be sold all over the world.
It makes perfect sense, according to Hipkins, to collaborate with and assist industry in order to address the climate catastrophe.
BlackRock provided little specifics regarding the $2 billion New Zealand ($1.22 billion) fund but did state that institutional investors would be its initial target market. According to Andrew Landman, the managing director of BlackRock in Australia and New Zealand, it was the first time the company had started a project of this nature.
According to Landman, who spoke to reporters, “The level of innovation is far greater in this country than we see elsewhere in clean tech.” “Those investee companies are demonstrating enormous visionary capabilities.”
BlackRock estimated that a total investment of around US$26 billion would be needed to make the grid entirely green.
In a statement posted to social media, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink stated that “the world is looking for models of cooperation between the private and public sectors to ensure an orderly, just, and fair energy transition.”
The plan, according to David Seymour, the leader of New Zealand’s libertarian ACT Party, would raise power bills with little environmental benefit.
“New Zealanders don’t want to be subjected to a ‘world first’ climate change experiment that will mean the government micromanages their lives,” Seymour said in a statement.
